War Magic: Religion, Sorcery, and Performance - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1785333291 ISBN 13: 9781785333293

Publisher: Berghahn Books, 2016

Synopsis

This compelling volume explores how war magic and warrior religion unleash the power of the gods, demons, ghosts, and the dead. Documenting war magic and warrior religion as they are performed in diverse cultures and across historical time periods, this volume foregrounds embodiment, practice, and performance in anthropological approaches to magic, sorcery, shamanism, and religion. The authors go beyond what magic ‘represents’ to consider what magic does. From Chinese exorcists, Javanese spirit siblings, and black magic in Sumatra to Tamil Tiger suicide bombers, Chamorro spiritual re-enchantment, tantric Buddhist war magic, and Yanomami dark shamans, religion and magic are re-evaluated not just from the practitioner’s perspective but through the victim’s lived experience. These original investigations reveal a nuanced approach to understanding social action, innovation, and the revitalization of tradition in colonial and post-colonial societies undergoing rapid social transformation.

About this title

About the Author

Douglas Farrer is Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Guam. He is the author of Shadows of the Prophet: Martial Arts and Sufi Mysticism (Springer), and co-author of Martial Arts as Embodied Knowledge: Asian Traditions in a Transnational World (SUNY).

Edition details

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1785333291
• ISBN 13: 9781785333293
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 180
• Editor: Farrer Douglas